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Completionist questions (spoilers)

Hi everyone,

after having completed two games minus one endgame, there remain a few questions to which I haven't found answers on my own, nor from any other source I had access to. And since I'm an obsessive completionist, they keep nagging at me. I'd appreciate any answers from the experts here:

(1) I haven't managed to find all the recipes, and my experiments with starting several games appear to indicate their locations are random. So, is there at least a list of the recipes available, so that I might know what I missed?

(2) There is an achievement that says Complete Three "Kingdom as Companion" quests or such like. I haven't the slightest idea what that even is. What does it refer to? I haven't played Varnhold's Lot yet, so it may refer to that, but I seem to recall that achievement existed before the recent update.

(3) In my second game I managed to find all the artifact fragments....but one. I'm missing one of the Tiger's Stripes fragments, a "Leather Scrap covered in Ancient Runes". Naturally, I consulted a list, but all the existing lists appear to miss that fragment too. The very odd thing is, while I missed others in my first game, I got all the fragments of that item back then. What did I miss? Is there a complete list?

(4) I completed all but one of the artisan quests, and almost all of them a long time before endgame. However, I only got the special items from five of them (Bokken's elixir, Dragn's Armor, Varrask's Earth Breaker, Irlene's Grandmaster's Rod and Nazrielles sword "Perfection"). Is there any way to trigger the others (Mim, Sharel, Kimo and Shaynih'a) ? As for the one I didn't complete (or even get), Trival from Varnhold came to speak with me after finishing chapter 4 and said he wanted me to visit him, but when I did, I didn't get a quest from him. I could ask about a militia and he said it was doing well, but I never got a quest from him, nor did he ever make a gift, even less a special one. Was there something I did wrong or was it a bug? There also was no option to build a workshop for him.

(5) I noticed you can't loot the bodies of enemies affected by Baleful Polymorph. Their corpses have the items, but you can't pick them up. Is this intentional or a bug?

And lastly, a somewhat unrelated question. This game has quite the learning curve. I played my first game on Easy and cursed it to hell, my second one on normal with comparably smooth sailing, and now I'm playing chapter 1 on Challenging and didn't have to use a single healing potion or spell yet after several main-story-related combat encounters. However, I have to ask if you're really supposed to go into that spider-infested cave for Bokken as early as the journal indicates? IMO those spider swarms have way too many hit points to tackle them at level 2 only with a torch and alchemist's fire, especially since you have no way to cure attribute damage at that point. I used up 10 alchemists' fire for one of the swarms, after which I didn't have enoug for the second one. Am I missing some tactical element that would make this possible?

Thanks for any answers. I love this game. Easily one of my favorites of the last five years.

1- They're all scripted locations as far as I've seen
2- This is achievable in the regular game. I'm not 100% sure how to get it, but I thought that it was just the progression quests like "rank up X times" etc.

4- Make sure that you upgrade their villages, and then their workshops. I think that Tirval wants you to complete a project before she starts.
5- Rules as Written; all of your gear morphs into your body when you polymorph into a non-humanoid. So that's probably intentional.

Haggis
Eating a haggis provides you with +1 bonus on all saving throws for a day.

Hearty Meal
Eating a hearty meal provides you with +1 bonus on all saving throws for a day.

Hearty Purple Soup
Eating a hearty purple soup provides you with immunity to all poisons and diseases for a day. It also removes all poison and disease effects, and fully restores HP.

Hunter's Roast
Eating a hunter's roast provides you with 1 temporary hit point per level for a day.

Jeweled Rice
Eating a jeweled rice provides you with +5 bonus to movement speed for a day.

Kameberry Pie
Eating a kameberry pie provides you with fast healing 1 for a day.

Mastodon Steak
Eating a mastodon steak provides you with +1.5 temporary hit point per character level (rounded down).

Monster Casserole
Eating a monster casserole provides you with +2 bonus on damage rolls for a day.

Onion Soup
Eating an onion soup provides you with +1 bonus on all saving throws for a day.

Owlbear Omelet
Eating an owlbear omelet provides you with +1 bonus on all attack rolls for a day.

Rice-n-Nut Pudding
Eating a rice-n-nut pudding provides you with +5 movement speed bonus for a day.

Seasoned Wings and Thighs
Eating seasoned wings and thighs provides you with 1 temporary hit point per level for a day.

Shepherd's Pie
Eating a shepherd's pie provides you with +1 bonus on all saving throws for a day.

Smoked Trout and Hydra Pate
Eating a smoked trout pate provides you with +1 bonus to AC for a day.

Succulent Sausages
Eating succulent sausages provides you with +1 temporary hit point per character level.

Sweet Pancakes
Eating sweet pancakes provides you with +5 bonus to movement speed for a day.

Taffy
Eating a taffy provides you with +3 bonus to Will saving throws for a day.

Whiterose Oysters
Eating Whiterose oysters provides you with a +4 bonus to all Concentration checks and caster level checks for a day. It also increases your spells' DC by +2 for a day.

(2)
"Kingdom as Companion" refers to the design principle we adhered to while building the Kingdom: ideally, your country should become like another companion to you. It shares in your adventures, it requires attention, but also helps you (even in terms of loot, he-he). Here, it refers to the fact that your kingdom has an identity of its own, and thus an alignment. There are a few quests before "Varnhold Vanishing" and before and after "War of the River Kings" that deal with representatives of different countries and different alignments. You need to complete 3 of those to get the achievement.